The present invention relates to an illumination unit and a display which each include a light modulation device exhibiting a scattering property or transparency with respect to light.
In recent years, improvements in image quality and energy conservation of liquid crystal displays have been accelerated, and systems achieving an improvement in dark-room contrast by modulating light intensity in a partial region of a backlight have been proposed. As a main technique of achieving an improvement in dark-room contrast, some of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) used as light sources of a backlight are driven to modulate backlight light based on a display image. Moreover, in large-screen liquid crystal displays, as in the case of small-screen liquid crystal displays, a reduction in profile has been strongly desired; therefore, attention has been given not to a system in which cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) or LEDs are disposed directly below a liquid crystal panel, but to an edge light system in which a light source is disposed on an edge of a light guide plate. However, in the edge light system, it is difficult to perform a partial drive to modulate light intensity in a partial region of the light source.